From Skill Development to Nation`s Development: A Giant Leap of Pragmatic Dream !

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It is belief of government of India that skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social development of any country. They have become even more important given the increasing pace of globalization and technological changes taking place in the world. As India moves progressively towards becoming a “Knowledge Economy”, it becomes increasingly important that vocational education and training (VET) create and nurture a skill

development system. The issue of skill building has been at the forefront of policy debates in recent years. Unprecedented scope for skill development in the country arises from the unique 25-year window of opportunity, called India's demographic dividend. Skill enhancement of the younger generation is imperative to trigger economic development in India. Moreover, it is expected that the ageing economy phenomenon in rich countries will globally create an acute shortage of skilled manpower approximately 56.5 million by 2020. 

This belief goes further in asserting that by getting the skill development act right, India can have a skilled manpower surplus of approximately 47 million Skill formation, productivity and growth are interlinked. Skill perceived as the ability to efficiently utilize human energy and perform better in any occupation, could be acquired and updated. Skill needs are always dynamic and acquired skills need to match demand on a continuous basis. Skill base of population in India is very low. Nearly 90 percent of total population in India do not have any skills. 

See the exactly opposite picture belying this hope. As per 61st NSSO Survey, 2004-05, the total workforce in the Indian economy was 459 million of which the unorganized sector accounted for 395 million, constituting 86 percent of the total workers (and 433 million, i.e. 93 percent of the total workforce was in informal employment).2 The sector cuts across all economic activities and includes rural and urban areas. It contributes to about 60 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The unorganized sector is dominated by own-account workers; workers and apprentices in micro enterprises; unpaid family workers; casual labourers; home based workers; peripatetic workers and migrant labourers; out-of-school youth and adults in need of skills; and farmers and artisans in rural areas. These groups are characterized largely by low skills, poor productivity and, low and uncertain income.

Also, consider following challenges in realizing the targets of skill development. 1) Sheer size of unorganized sector, 2)Too heterogeneous, broad age range, unorganized, widely distributed sector, 3)Generally poor educational level, 4) Trainers must know and be able to communicate in local language, 5) Existing skills have been acquired largely through informal apprenticeship, 6) Competencies not certified, 7) High opportunity cost to trainee, 8) Training as worker's right in the context of RTE, 9) Should training not be a requirement for employment in the organized sector?, 10) Research in Training pedagogy and delivery issues, 11) Training coordination, 12) Requiring formal sector training institutions to work also for unorganized sector, 13) Service sector as an area of special thrust, 14) Methodological and Logistical problems in carrying out surveys

Educational levels of the labour work force, which have significant bearing on capacity to acquire and absorb skills, have not undergone any significant changes in last twenty years.  Improving the educational and skill levels could seriously contribute to productivity growth. The skill up-gradation all the more important to take advantages of the "demographic dividend". Poor skill and educational levels could also be a factor for the predominance of informal sector and near stagnant employment in organised sector. Considering the importance of skill development and training, the eleventh five year plan launched a National Skill Development Mission to bring about a paradigm change in handling of "Skill Development"programs. A three tier structure of Prime Minister`s National Council on Skill Development, secondly National Skill Development Coordination Board and National Skill Development Corporation. 

Since vocational training is a concurrent subject in the Indian Constitution, both the Central and State governments share the responsibility of financing vocational training. The Central Government has created a Skill Development Fund with an initial corpus of Rs. 99.5 billion for supporting the activities of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to provide financial support to skill development initiatives emanating from the private sector. The corpus of the fund is expected to go up to about Rs.150 billion as it is intended to garner capital from governments, public and private sector, and bilateral & multilateral sources.

In skill development and training, both the content and the delivery mechanism are equally important. This sets the case for involvement of corporate sector. Corporates in India need to be aware about their social responsibility.  Ten most important sectors of the economy where skill gaps have been identified could be picked up for initial action. These sectors are: auto & auto components, building & construction industry, transport & logistics, organised retail, healthcare, food processing, education & skill development, gems and jewelery, leather & leather goods. ITIs hold the key to cater to the needs of manufacturing sector. Informal service sector has emerged as an important sector with large employment opportunities. Despite the sound intentions, there is lack of linkages with industry; many of the skills have been drawn up without active consultation with industry. No attempt has been made to standardize curriculum across ITIs.  

The skill gap in Indian economy are across the spectrum and are not confined to lower or intermediate levels. Even at the top level, full equivalent of man-power employed in primary R&D is just around one lakh persons.  The thrust of skills, therefore, is required at traditional and modern industry levels and also at the level of basic sciences and research. Skill gap should also be identified at the top level and incentive structure should be such which encourages people to take these activities. Efforts are needed to bring vocational education programs parallel to the normal conventional school and college program by providing lateral induction from one stream to another at all stages. This will remove the apprehensions of vocational training as inferior to conventional education and an option for school leavers/dropouts. 

In most countries, apprenticeship concept is the most important intermediary step for improving employability of the workers. In India, there is no institutionalized infrastructure which matches an apprentice candidate to an employer, an employer to a candidate, and a trained apprentice to a job. The apprenticeship regime therefore did not pick up. This must be remodeled so that it becomes effective on job training rather than compliance with the act without any focus on the outcome. Reason for the limited use of apprenticeship route for employment for the trainees is the low rates of stipend and for the enterprise its cost. 

Skill standard-based curriculum and assessments provide students with credentials that link recognition with workplace requirement. Industries then are expected to be involved in developing benchmarks for assessments to evaluate skills, knowledge and abilities in classrooms and on-the-job training or internships. The training modules and materials of the various trades of ITIs have become outdated and are not in line with the needs of the industry. This could be a continuous exercise. Identifying learning needs and needs of skill identification and standardization can be mapped by coalition of industry bodies or sectoral skill councils. These councils can work on identifying skill development needs with an emphasis on employability and training sector wise, mapping the standards of training, procedures of delivery. The councils can also measure quality assessment criteria by reviewing mechanism and parameters on which training institutes and programs. Next, these councils can determine competence standards and qualifications as per the changing scenario of industry employability. 

The structured ways to impart skill development could be (i) using innovative delivery models such as decentralized delivery, mobile training, distance learning, e-learning and web-based learning; (ii) involving panchayats, municipalities and other local bodies in skill development and employment generation at the local level in collaboration with Self Help Groups (SHGs), cooperatives and Non-government Organisations (NGOs); (iii) establishing sector specific Labour Market Information System (LMIS) and Human Resource Planning at national and state levels, and area-specific planning at local levels with the help of Sector Skill Councils (under National Skill Development Corporation) to undertake labour market analysis; (iv) establishing a 'National Vocational Qualifications Framework' to facilitate standardized and acceptable, international comparability of qualifications; and (v) strengthening and upgrading Employment Exchanges under the National Employment Service to provide counselling, guidance and placement services to employment seekers. However, all these are actions to be taken in the future. 

India is at the cusp of a great new opportunity: the demographic dividend. The proportion of the dependent population is decreasing, and the share of the working age population has been increasing, and will continue to increase over the next two decades. If they are not productively employed, this dividend might become a demographic nightmare. On the other hand, if they are better educated and more skilled, they will be able to not only contribute to India's growth. 

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Let us plan together...going beyond state and districts, towards talukas and villages.

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Setting new standards--planning to improve the implementation of new procedures according to them-- improving the level of excellence according to the quality benchmarks already set in--then moving to create the assets which will help in the operation of the various schemes the government is running and finally monitoring and evaluation of the funds used in all these operations; these are all the things which are being reviewed again and again in the view of 12th plan formulation of the approach towards centrally sponsored schemes under which money is being allocated to the district administration.

Increasingly there is feeling that funds being transferred from centre to states for empowerment of Panchayati raj institutions and for the development schemes run by them are being directed through various grey routes as slush funds for ' employment guarantee' of few vested interests. Everyone talks about social audit of the funds and schemes at the Panchayat, tehsil and district level. Interestingly, recent upsurge of Lokpal Movement also highlighted ' auditing ' at higher levels of administration. Few people in beuracracy feel that social auditing is like plucking a tree after being planted and then complaining that it is not growing. So, a new comprehensive approach is being demanded by beurecrats for smooth functioning of the scheme. This seems to be exactly opposite of the kind of demands social movements are making about accountability and transperency.

Anywhere documenting the problems in details creates huge aspirations in society. Any how, these kind of socially communicated wish lists have its own political benefits. It creates positive pressure groups and waves of proactive actions which ultimately benifits people. While everyone will agree to the fact that details are very important in the planning process, many times we tend to miss the qualitative aspects of nuanced issues. When missionisation of government schemes related to health, education happens, these schemes do come under fire from concerned different ministries. This must be the reason that in the 12th plan there is special emphasis on the moving out of the silos and having harmonious integration of coordination with the ministries while implementing the development schemes and the innovative efforts government is trying to take.

During the consultation processes or working groups of policy formulations many times the experience is that final outcome of draft is very much different from the original unerstanding of the issue. One may call it cumulative improvement about the understanding or the comprehension of the gravity of the issues. But there needs to be a structure while documenting the key issues involved during the discussion of the problem under consideration. The approach of many meetings to explore different kinds of documenting resources, techniques or technologies is very poor considering the kind of challenges being faced in the spectrum of policies. When the broad parameters are designed there should be capacity of the recieving audience to comprehend the details involved in those issues. For that different kind of mapping techniques can be used. This is a matter of mind set change. If we view every issue in matter of text and numbers only we will be definitely missing the larger ground relaities on the ground.

There will be no doubt about the assertion that any policy must be people driven. Normally, we always believe thatv we should create institutional framework and those institutions will take care of the mechanisms, processes and the kind of operations involved in the performance of the specific task. Going beyond this, HRD approach tells us that we should be investing in the ability of the people to deliever. We have to create environment of trust within different stakeholders. Then only they will share key contextual information which will lead towards formation of common knowledge about the problem. We need to consistently train the people. We need to reward the people for their innovative ideas and steps they have taken in their respective domain of work. We need to secure their well being in terms of their basic needs in order to motivate them to contribute them meningfully towards the work they are doing in development projects.

Key question is despite that billions of crores being poured, why the certain areas are always backward. In the era of liberalisation where there is huge increase in indirect taxes, central government is pulling the strings about the allocations of the many development schemes. So central government is calling the shots to motivate the district administration for the execution of all the schemes. But are all these schemes and huge some of money is making effect. The number of centrally sponsored schemes to the states is huge. Previous number was 230, before it was chopped down to 99 and again was increased to 120. It is interesting to note that top 15% of the schemes eat up almost 95% of the money. Do we need more schemes? Or we need fair rationalisation of the number of schemes and funds to have maximum impact on the capacity of the decentralised panchayati raj to solve their problems? Is the approach of only relying on the district administration for approaching all development problems is reliable or we need to go to tehsil and village level by looking at the data in more desaggrigated way so as to have more incisive microplanning? The questions are manifold.

We need to think in the direction of asking the question: is there any other way or choice to strengthen the vehicle of channeling development efforts other than decentralisation? How approach of rural development policies can be made more harmonious by including talukas and panchayats more, going beyond district administration? How we can accomodate rising political ambitions of the Panchayati Raj system to enforce a lot of energy and incentive for creating conducive enviornment of accountability and performance in implementation of the different schemes? Will always roof top solutions will work? Do we ever measure the governance deficit? If we do not measure it, we will lose the opportunity to take corrective measures also. Do we need to concentrate on the qualitative aspects of the issues rather than just looking at the quantitative aspects of the every scheme? Do we only want to fight for the funds or we should be fighting for the creating the enabling environment for having optimum impact of the work being done in perticular area.

Government is relying hugely on different types of Rights acts like employment gurantee, food security, information access and more recently delievery of services. Beyond creating this rights based approach do governments of our times have convergent vision about creating the environment of hope, aspirations and constructive engagement with the issues by more participative way? Do government has shared vision of rural development across the board of ministry of finance, rural development and Planning Commission? Understanding all these questions will only enable to have detailed understanding about microplanning we need to look more seriously towards. Real movers and shakers of development are in the states as recognised by recent state elections and examples like Nitish Kumar, Navin Patnaik, Tarun Gogoi, Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan. Here the name and the political affiliation of the people at the helm is not being highlighted. But the point is that they have the capability, knowledge and socio-political will power and context to mobilise the what I call anthropoligally sound manifesto of development. So, role of centre must become less and less to enable states to do more and more. That is the real spirit of federalism, we dont know word forgotten long ago but burning beneath the surface of the issues like Telengana etc. So, bottomline is centres must respect the political leap of faith expressed by different states in their understanding of the development paradigm they wish to enter in. 

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What state plans mean for national development: Devil and God both lies in details....

Maharashtra to Publish Human Development Report Every Year.
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Planning Commission has approved annual state plan for Maharashtra 2011-12 worth Rs. 42,000 crores, a 500 crore in addition to what state government proposed in its presentation before Planning Commission in New Delhi on Thursday. According to the sources, the Planning Commission has applauded Maharashtra state’s performance in many areas.


The key issues discussed in today’s meeting were water, power, and infrastructure, millennium development goals of nutrition, sanitation, and infant mortality. The discussions about water and power were largely centered about the availability of coal to new power plants being proposed or coming up in the state. A large number of investors who wish to establish power plants are interested in Vidarbha region because of its proximity to the coal resources in Chattisgarh and Orissa. Even though state government has a policy, which gives freedom to new private investors to establish power plants without any licensing, out of the total Memorandum of Understanding signed by state government with the private investors, only 10 percent projects are moving towards status of formal start. The companies which wish to invest in Konkan region are thinking about importing quality coal from abroad but imported coal is not cheap compared to domestic coal. Therefore, Vidarbha is gaining more importance in terms of increasing investment in power projects. State government has expressed its concern saying, while much of the power need is being felt in Western Maharashtra, ensuring the dedicated coal supply from far regions to the power plants is a problem, considering the role of railways involved.


Planning Commission congratulated Maharashtra state for establishing Water Regulatory Authority and appealed to state government to work on the tariff modalities, so that Planning Commission can learn from this unique experiment to accommodate the lessons to draft Model Act on Water Regulatory Authority to be listed in the 12th Plan Document. Planning Commission also felt this draft model act, would be useful in guiding other states in implementing this regulatory system in their state. Maharashtra, under its Water Regulatory Authority has decided water entitlement for 260 projects. State government informed Planning Commission about the revised policy of the government about the priority of the water usage in the state. According to the Barve Commission report of 1962, the priority was set in order of drinking water, industry and agriculture. But state government has revised the order keeping drinking water at first place, while agriculture taking higher priority over industrial use. Therefore, the issue of water allocation is also becoming crucial n the clearance of the new power plants.


Planning Commission expressed concern over the pattern of water use in state. Pointing out that of the total cultivation in the state of Maharashtra, sugarcane is cultivated on only 2 percent land, but it is consuming over 70 % of water available for irrigation. State government has promised to look into this matter citing this as a politically sensitive matter. Commission noticed that state government is investing only half percent of the total irrigation budget for the development of command area. On this issue, state government clarified that priority of state government being focused on securing water in the dams rather than investing it for irrigation projects, in the light of mandatory deadlines of water sharing agreements between Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.


Planning Commission praised state government’s initiative in reducing the load shedding and the claim of the state government that state will be load shedding free by 2012. At the same time Planning Commission cautioned about transmission and distribution losses. Current peak power deficit of Maharashtra is 3000- 3500 MW. Planning Commission has suggested the state government to learn from the experience of Haryana, which is currently implementing PPP model in power transmission investing 400 crores. Apart from this, the State government informed about its scheme under which agriculture sector is not provided electricity during peak hours during day. Instead, they are being provided electricity in non-peak periods, without compromising the domestic 24 hours electricity supply. This has ensured lesser load shedding along with lesser loss of water.


Notably, the state government expressed its deep concern over the conservative role played by State Electricity Regulatory Authority in deciding the electricity tariff structure, which is not helpful to the efforts of state government to recover from the challenges in the power sector. State government also assured Planning Commission that government is not interfering in the operations of the MERC. In turn, the Planning Commission suggested that the government should look more positively towards the ‘Open Access’ policy mooted by Central Electricity Authority under which, any big consumer can purchase energy from anywhere, and thereby loosen burden on the state electricity distribution boards. In this respect, state government informed Planning Commission that state has initiated policy in which consumers using more than one megawatt of electricity are relieved from state regulator tariff and they can access energy on market price.


State government requested Planning Commission to expedite the Land Acquisition Act so that it can implement many power and other infrastructure projects, which are being delayed otherwise. The major infrastructure projects discussed today were MIHAN SEZ project of Nagpur, international airports at Nagpur, Navi Mumbai and Chakan, Pune. State government requested Planning Commission to assist in the expedition of the MIHAN project and international airport at Nagpur, so that crucially important location like Nagpur can be used for direct exports of goods. State government appealed Planning Commission to look carefully into the matter of viability gap regarding the MIHAN project. The Viability Gap Funding Scheme provides financial support in the form of grants to infrastructure projects undertaken through public private partnerships with a view to make them commercially viable. Central Government has established a Viability Gap Fund to aid the PPP infrastructure projects which face the viability gap due to inherent nature of the project. The Scheme is administered by the Ministry of Finance. Planning Commission appealed to the state government to look for the viability of the Metro project in Mumbai and suggested to look towards solely state funded project rather than approaching PPP route in this respect. State government has not notified SEZ act yet so the initiatives on this part are yet to take any shape.


In the wake of 25 % of the awards given to villages by the President of India for sanitation campaign going to Maharashtra, the Planning Commission expressed its concern over the consistent pattern of these villages falling back on their performances in this regard. Planning Commission suggested establishing a feedback system or implementing a check list for assessing the performance of these villages in cumulative manner. Regarding the ‘Total Sanitation Campaign’, the state government is embarking on a mission under which, every state government building would be ensured with the availability of ladies toilets, going beyond the routine practice of building toilets in primary schools to help reduce the drop out rates of the girl students. State government has requested Planning Commission to consider additional assistance to extend sanitation scheme for secondary educational institutions and beyond.


State government has suggested novel idea to Planning Commission about checking of water quality in the state. According to this idea, every Science College, medical college, engineering college in particular area can use its laboratory and human resources to check quality of the water in the area in consistent manner. Planning Commission has commended this idea and promised to look at it more seriously at central level.


State government informed Planning Commission about its experiment in Kolhapur district where sonography machines are being monitored for the actual girl sex determination and thus ensuring the check on the female feticide. Punjab government has taken note of this experiment. State government has requested Planning Commission to guide it about the possible implications of the widespread implementation of this experiment because it may provoke ethical debates in future. Planning Commission has expressed deep concern about the greater girl child infant mortality in minority population in Parbhani, Jalna, Washim and Buldhana districts. Commission appealed state government to expedite some kind of research study to identify the reasons for this greater girl child infant mortality in other backward districts of the state also.


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Enriching the Knowledge Base

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Which is the most important thing we wish to achieve in Indian science ? The critical mass. Yes, we are urgently and massively needing the critical mass of scientific experts in each scientific discipline you can imagine of. As Indians, we have tendency not to define things specifically. Around the corner, we always kept things vague. We dont like to publish the white reports of each scientific sector`s future as Japanese are doing it since many years. Or we do not wish to learn from the American system of alarming to their nation through the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in which National Academy of Science and Engineering warns about what we today understand by Fareed Zakaria`s Post American World and its deep engagement with science, mathematics education, rising tendency to do hard work, rising science technology indicators like publications, patents, R&D investments etc. Even conservative historian who takes pride in supporting colonialism Niall Ferguson in his latest book "Civilization: West and the Rest", endorses how complacency of the western world and hard working approach of the east is making the difference. Is India ready to take plunge in this great transformation through genuine investment in science education, research and development and innovation activities? Or we also will be content only by the historical successes of IITs, IIScs and few centers of excellences which are also not growing around the greatest benchmarks of world science.


The other day, when I attended a expert meeting who were discussing how the future of weavers and how the  handloom sector can be  secured by planning different schemes, policies; Minister of that department asked a provocative question. At the end of day what we want? Do we really wish to make the handloom sector the world class brand and make weaver community self reliant by making them free from the government schemes and multi national company`s paltry benefit share after the handsome sale of their products. He further added, "What we are discussing is what. We know what  we wish to achieve. There is not doubt about that. But how to do that is the crucial question we need to ask each other consistently." In a way Minister was hinting towards the fact that traditional knowledge of weaving community resides in the weaver. We have to respect him. On the same lines when I was thinking about many of the initiative central government is taking about creating new central universities, 14 world class universities, IITs, IIMs, INSPIRE scheme for inspiring young students to move towards the science research, different R&D grants being given for projects etc. We usually talk about creating huge facilities, institutions and great laboratories to foster scientific research in India but we hardly pay attention to create the genuine people who can do that. Again we know what we wish to achieve it. But we do not know how we will do it. 


When every year there are crores of rupees allocated for Indian science, one thing is clear. Government is not able to monitor how that money is being spent. There is not evaluation. Because large money given to R&D projects is a grant-in-aid, so government dont want the research results, because it believes that those research results will go to public. Fair enough. But there should be some kind of feedback system to monitor the funding. On the top, DST is not the executing agency for big science technology projects, it is a just demonstrator. Why? The execution of training programs is not mandate of DST. Why? Can you imagine, the increase in MHRD budget is 1.5 times more than entire budget of DST in last few years. Most important challenge is to create that manpower to use all these funds and all these facilities being planned, created.
We are talking about joint appointments of scientists in academic and research institutions, we are talking about creating more post doctoral fellows, we are talking about creating world class facilities at every corner of the country but consider one fact. The number of Indian students working on their Ph.D.s in USA is more than that of working in India. So, even though we boast about creating many many institutions, who will come to teach and do research in coming Indian institutions.


So, what lies ahead? Govt. has started thinking in terms of paradigm. Some catalysts which started to be working since National Knowledge Commission are showing colors. In the last sixty years we have witnessed innovation playing major role in improving health, education, transport, communicate, infrastructure, energy, governance. At the same time there are serious global challenges related to female literacy, infant mortality, water and sanitation, food and nutrition, alternate energy, draughts and floods, preserving scientific temper, better delivery of services, environment, war, security etc. As we enter the Innovation Decade and 12^th Plan it is necessary to refurbish our understanding about innovation. It involves thinking differently, creatively and insightfully. This will enable to have solutions/inventions that have an impact on social and economic value. The kind of scientific initiatives we need to take require definitely going beyond conventional products/processes/institutional forms. So, moving beyond R&D to mean new applications of old technologies, new processes and structures, organizational creativity are needed.

The science and technology can contribute to the innovation in different domains of life. Products, services, processes, organizations, governance, creating opportunities in development/social sector, addressing urban rural divide, how to collaborate or create links of cooperation between public, national, international, private sector, individuals, institutions.  The driving factors behind innovations are people, culture, diversity, ecosystem, new threats, opportunities, and unbalancing elements in flow of knowledge when encountered with particular problem. Innovations are required to improve performance, productivity, quality, reducing price etc. They are key to growth, prosperity and problem solving world over. Science and Technology institutions with their human resources, knowledge intensive capability of enterprising mind, high broadband connectivity and ability to forge new collaborations on the basis of problem identified for particular area of work. Changing nature of science and technology demands multidisciplinary, collaborative and increased speed in terms of execution because obsolescence rate in new technologies is very fast compared to previous generation technologies.

Human development factor remains key to the any initiative of scientific mission of government. Universal applications which address the basic concerns of the livelihood and motivating open source innovation models is inescapable reality. Making best use of scarce resources like people and institutions is the top priority of this hour. Ensuring the relevance of research institutions in modern economy is very much the direction in which we should be going. This belief also includes providing scientific technological support to local industries to assist in improving their competitive position. Sustaining and improving quality of both curiosity driven research and applied research is required.

When we view science technology as strategic sector establishing a sense of urgency must be first step to take. Formation of powerful experts coalitions groups, creating clear vision and objectives which can be monitored, evaluated and followed for post-implementation analysis, communicating this vision, creating short term target which will incrementally add to the bigger plan targets, consistently consolidating the targets and improving upon the change and institutionalizing the innovative approaches which will be easy to train/educate people to inculcate into the human resources of the organizations; are some of the crucial steps in the direction of deploying science and technology for strategic purposes. The strategic challenges in front of Indian Scientific establishment are clearly complex web of multiple issues to handle simultaneously with great harmonizing effect. The number of researchers per million (119 compared to 715 of China, 4628 of USA & 5300 of Japan), R&D expenditure (0.8 % of GDP),

Larger strategy for science and technology will include providing broader platforms for innovations to include products, services, organizations and institutions, processes, research and development, science and technology, governance, social and cultural issues, mindset and national, state, sectoral councils. In this direction, encouraging innovations aiming at bottom of pyramid which will provide awareness, access, affordability, availability, scalability, sustainability, quality, pervasive growth, innovations by/for people & innovations for the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid is necessary.

Creating ecosystem for this will have multiplier affect. This will include incentives and awards, innovation clusters in universities, innovative business clusters, promoting innovation in MSMEs, allowing organizational autonomy and flexibility, clear policies and programs, creating new institutions for addressing that strategic core of scientific research, creating institutional framework and awareness about venture capital, creating awareness about Intellectual Property Rights and also strengthening the initiatives which believe in open source research, establishing ICT tools in more pervasive ways.

This ecosystem will only be sustainable if we will be able to establish the key drivers in that system. These drivers are approaches which are multidisciplinary, collaborative, distinguishing between generational changes vs incremental changes, durable vs disposable, need vs demand, nature vs nurture, locally relevant, globally connected and competitive, focusing at the quality edge. These drivers will enter into realization of stakeholders after the Spaces of Discourses communicate these issues consistently. These spaces are discussions, debates, seminars, conferences, best practices, subversive dialogue, irreverent dialogue, new ideas, innovation, ICT portal etc. Thus role of technology will be as a tool for problem solving. Technology is definitely entry point to increase the delivery, access, efficiency, productivity, transparency, service etc.

In terms of policy building, main stake holder is government with evidence based approach and innovation ecosystem as a paradigm. When it comes to strengthening human capacity or raising critical mass of the professionals, it is the research community and how they plan for coming decade to attract talent and support systems for them in the paradigm of proactive measures. Strengthening institutional capacity is also next thing in waiting where institutions like community and university have big role to play by making use of increased competitive grant size given by government in the paradigm of excellence and expansion. Technology development harnessed by government, society and industry is very much participative process where solutions converge with each other`s interests. Societal interventions matter and governments, society and NGOs often need each other`s support to chart out a plan which needs to be changed from supply driven to demand driven where interventions to empowerment held greater chance of being successful. In the domain of international S&T cooperation, government and scientific community will use their resources and networks to move ahead with clear cut goal of strategic cooperation keeping in mind the principles of reciprocity, parity and emerging themes of science-technology diplomacy. So these are some of shades of coming times where Indian science is moving for? Enough for today, will keep discussing these issues in coming days. Have a nice visionary day !


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Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growth

So, after huge success and failure (!!!!) of Conference of Parties at Kyoto, Bali, Copenhagen, Cancun the world is back to square one. Basically trying to understand how to address the challenges of future where non-carbon growth will dominate the agenda and policy making. India cannot remain behind in this race at least in terms of scenario building. How we are capable to really live upto those scenario reports is different matter of study. So, lets get started.

Everyone knows global warming happens due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. By 2030 unless mitigation actions are taken, world primary energy demand expected to be 40% higher than in 2007. By 2020, in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced up to 50%. Approximately 20-30% of plant and animal species are at increased risk of extinction if increase in global average temperature exceed the range 1.5-2.5 degree C. (with respect to IPCC 2007)

In terms of per capital emissions India is still far away behind compared to USA, EU, JAPAN, CHINA. But kind of growth strategy we are pursuing, we will certainly end up paying the price of that in terms of invading the nature and developing polluting lifestyle.India`s emission is 1.18 tonnes of Co2 equivalent per capita in 2008 to that of 4.38 tonnes of global average. Though India has not created it, it stands committed to reduce the emissions intensity by 20-25 percent over 2005 levels by year 2020. The Copenhagen conference which lead to the Copenhagen Accord reflects a broad political consensus on some of the issues which are relevant to the negotiations:
" There is an agreement on the broad scientific view that the world must not exceed a 2 degree centigrade increase in warming on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development. "  All participating countries have agreed to communicate their mitigation commitments and actions. Developed countries (Annex I parties) have agreed to report measured, reported and verified (MRV) mitigation actions as per COP guidelines. With Integrated Energy Policy projecting energy needs of country in 2030 like this: need of oil to be around 3-5 times more than current consumption, need of natural gas six-9 times than current consumption, need of coal to be around 5-6 times more than current consumption; in these scenarios what will be the best strategy for low carbon economy.

What do inclusive energy policy means? At the minimum, inclusive growth means all households are electrified and that all have access to clean cooking fuels such as natural gas or LPG. Currently 85% of the rural and 10% of the urban households use biomass for cooking. We need secular shift from traditional biomass to modern commercial energy, in addition to improving the efficiency of use of traditional biomass. Towards this end, the integrated energy policy scenarios project 100 percent electrification of all households by 2020.

Government of India is witnessing different shades of policy approaches in front of them while dealing with these issues. One is determined effort which is highly probable and business as usual scenario. Here effective implementation of policies already in place makes sense to apply. Private sector sustains current efficiency efforts. There is continuous up-gradation of technology and finance from both private and public resources. Another policy approach is Aggressive effort which is highly desirable and demands visionary interventions from every quarter of government. New policies, in addition to effective implementation of existing policies; private sector efficiency efforts at higher scale and finally new technology as well as additional finance, both from domestic and international sources are key features of this approach.

In order to explore strategic options for reducing emission intensity of the economy, an analysis of the quantities and trends of GHG emissions from different sectors is essential. This helps to priorities the sectors, industries and gases where efforts can be made for an effective action. Emissions take place both during, production and consumption processes. The emission intensity of the economy can be lowered by reducing the need for production and consumption, as well as by making consumption and production processes more emission efficient. Today agriculture accounts for 18%, wastes for 3%, electricity for 38%, transport for 7%, other energy industries for 12%, cement for 7%, iron and steel for 6% of the total GHG emissions of India in 2007.

There are several technology options to improve the combustion efficiency and lower CO2 emissions. Super critical plants operate at higher temperatures leading to net heat rate of 2235 kCAl per kWh and specific emission of 0.83 kg per net kWh11. The technology is available globally and the cost is almost the same as sub-critical plants. As per recent guidelines and projections, super-critical power plants would account for 60 percent of the thermal capacity to be built in 12th plan and 100 percent in 13th plan. Super critical units thus could contribute up to 50 GW by 2020. Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is another promising technology, which can attain higher efficiencies and lower CO2 emissions and also produce synthetic chemical fuels such as diesel and hydrogen. However initial estimates under Indian conditions of high ash coal show very high auxiliary power consumption and hence the overall efficiency is comparable with sub-critical units at almost double the cost. While India will continue to do its research in IGCC, commercial deployment of IGCC is unlikely before 2020. In other important energy segments India hopes to achieve target of 50, 000-65, 000 MW by hydro power by 2020. In solar energy this scenario is around 10, 000 MW and by biomass 4, 000 MW. With current installed capacity of 4780 MW, Government has made aggressive projection for Nuclear Energy 9, 800 MW by 2020 despite Japan`s Fukushima event and protests at Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant site.

India imports 80% of its crude oil requirements. This becomes more critical when we know that now transport sector has become second sector to contribute to the GHGs mostly. Ways to tackle this crisis is increasing the share of public transport to 60 percent and share of rail in passenger transport to 35 percent, increasing the share of rail in freight movement to 50 percent, increasing efficiency of vehicles, introducing cleaner fuels, increasing electrification of railway tracks. There are other steel, cement, construction and other major industries contributing to carbon growth need to be taken into account but details are not being presented in this post.So electricity generation required in 2020 projected at existing terms is gross generation (Billion kWh) 2, 104-2359 and net generation estimated in 1970-2208 Billion kWh. I will deal about mitigation and adaptation strategies, concept of national accounting and green DGP in next post, till then have a nice energy efficient day.

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15 years of TRIPS: Conflict between stronger IP Enforcement and National Development Priorities…

We are living in the times when poor is getting poorer and rich, the richer. Why, if you ask, is this truer today than yesterday; the answer lies in the fact that passions about the anniversaries we often boast about are affecting us least. But anniversaries about which we are so ignorant are transforming our lives in far greater proportion than we would imagine. The 16 years of TRIPS and its yet to be ascertained impact is such a solid example of our consistent exposure to the power or lack of negotiating power, total void of experts who can stand in front of delegations of US, EU & Japan and now Korea, China and Australia. 

Basically the position of the developed world about trade negotiations can be summarised in following way: “Do as we say, not as we did!” Yes, it is very much true. Developed world consistently refused to respect the intellectual property rights until on a fine Sunday morning they realised that the competitive advantage in trade, R&D and technology development & commercialisation is waning. For many years US Congress refused to grant copyrights to foreigners on the basis of rationale that it will hinder the spread of mass literacy and refuse the liberty to enjoy the literature. No doubt, be not be surprised; most who suffered due to this were the British authors. Another example: Swiss Federal Councillor Brenner during the debate of patents in 1906 asserted that patent system should be adopted to the interests of our own industries. 

So, cut the shot and arrive at 1995. When TRIPS was implemented across the countries on the threat that obligation to it is directly proportional to the survival of membership of WTO. The role of private corporates in pushing for the provisions in the trade negotiations of the Uruguay round is well known. Mind well, TRIPS was in no manner a think tank like academic initiative. It was well devised strategy, carved and sharpened by industry leaders like pharma, semiconductors, computer software, entertainment etc. Basically IBM and Phizer were the two frontline companies which lobbied to drive the point to home of policymakers in US that newly industrialised countries like Japan and Korea are copying the technology and fastly catching up. So, failure of developing countries in registering their resistance, the highly sophisticated coercion tactics used during the negotiations and great degree of asymmetry in negotiating capacity all contributed to the culmination of the IP related agreements in WTO and finally came into existence in the form of TRIPS. 

The asymmetry in R&D expenses will show us how massive was the difference of R&D expenditure between developed and developing countries around the time when TRIPS was enforced by WTO member countries. Now the countries who signed TRIPS in haste are repenting in leisure by realising or yet in the myst of realisation that the objective of TRIPS was to freeze the comparative advantages. It is surprising that developing countries did not discuss the TRIPS provision at all during the Uruguay rounds of discussion years of 1986-89. Then suddenly around 1989, the negotiating teams of the developing countries were caught in psychological asymmetry when issues of IPR were inserted without allowing the developing countries to have a well-informed strategy to negotiate. The high-profile benefits of the TRIPS like transfer of technology, increased flow of FDI and incentives for domestic innovation are yet to be realised even to the level below that of promised. If yes, scholars ask where the empirical evidence is. More critically scholars refuse to agree to Econometric studies conducted to arrive at the conclusion which supports the highly boasted benefits of the TRIPS. Someone said that “Statistician is a person who tortures the data until it confesses the desired results.” 

We can make out from the stronger enforcement of the IP that it is actually to slow down or refusing the technology transfer. The impacts of TRIPS can be observed on the changing nature of the Public Funded research carried out by universities and research institutes vis-à-vis that of profit oriented applied research done by private industries. Situation is changing; academic research community which is meant to disseminate the knowledge are increasingly shying away from the publishing and instead are focussing on the securing the knowledge through the patents and other forms. So, academic communities are witnessing the less and less communication of knowledge even though howsoever the number of increasing conferences are registering massive crowd of paper presenters. Crucial questions: Is IP enforcement the legitimate instrument for realising the national development goals? Do developing countries have the policy space today while countering the pressure of western countries in newly emerging scenario of TRIPS + negotiations? Why should south now have more obligations compared to already frozen comparative advantage in favour of richer world?
 
While answering to all these questions we should remember that global web of IP enforcement has travelled beyond TRIPS provisions and US, EU, Japan and other highly industrialised countries are using stronger IP enforcement strategies, bilateral/multilateral free trade agreements to trap the developing countries to move towards the TRIPS + negotiations. The countries which are much richer than India in terms of per capita GDP are refusing to the mighty club of the developed world to enter into negotiations about TRIPS +. So, why developing countries like India should fall in line for the negotiations of the stronger and stronger IP enforcement. 

The report of the US-India Business Council entitled The Value of Incremental Innovation: Benefits for Indian Patients and Indian Businesses makes a strong plea for abolition of section 3(d) of the Indian Patents Act so that incremental innovations in the pharmaceutical sector can get patented in India. According to the report, this is beneficial to patients and also the domestic pharmaceutical industry since they are good at such incremental innovations. Government of India however, appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Mashelkar to examine whether it could be TRIPs compatible to restrict patents to New Chemical Entities. (NCEs) Since the Indian Patents Act has not restricted patents to NCEs, it does not require any amendment on the basis of the committee`s recommendations. Then this argument that patenting of all incremental innovations is beneficial to generic companies is facetious. It is likely to delay launching of generics. Further the evidence that patent protection is essential for innovation is not conclusive. Public funded research has been behind most pharmaceutical breakthroughs. 

We all know that IP rights are territorial, privately exercised and remains as it is until someone infringes upon it. In a way, IP is independent law but the questions about the safety and quality of the products protected under IP rights need to be asked. Marketing strategies of companies dictate seeking extension of market exclusivity for their products through various means. Patenting becomes one such strategy and many companies seek to increase number of patents on a single product as part of this strategy, mainly to keep off competition. Even without intellectual property protection, originator companies have an advantage over the generic pharma companies as they can bring their products to the market much before the latter and that gives them strong market presence by the time others enter. Generics serve a major public health cause by introducing cheaper drugs compared to the patented ones. Removal of section 3(d) will result in ever greening and delay in the entry of generics thereby adversely affecting public health. 

These days, the relation between stronger IP enforcement and Innovation is being discussed with vigour. While it is increasingly clear that IP enforcement is not the helpful catalyst for the innovation culture. Interests in IP protection change as local entrepreneur generate more and more innovation and new successful marketing strategies. In newly formed economic environment, the local brands compete with each other and with foreign market participants. Therefore these local small, medium and big firms seek ascending investments for the development of new products which require protection against uncompensated appropriation. So, increasingly IP strategy is being aligned with that of export strategy. National innovation programs in countries like Brazil, Singapore, Taiwan, Israel and elsewhere industrialised parks are increasingly being subsidised. More provisions are being made for seed financing for start-up entrepreneurs. 

Financing plans for facilities of consolidated activities to achieve economies of scale are being devised to support manufacturing industries. OECD economies rely heavily on subsidisation of innovation including R&D/Innovation of military & civil aircrafts, health, pharma and export markets. So developed countries are investing in helping SMEs by subsidising their efforts of creating local brands and by providing local capital base. They are pushing for policies promoting participation of SMEs in stronger IP enforcement. Access to scientific/technical/IP information is crucial in strengthening competitiveness. In developing countries, absence of access to efficient registration system of different IP forms, disadvantages less financially able participants. One thing is for sure. The baseline of TRIPs which is push towards stronger IP enforcement is here to say. Believers of stronger TRIPs say that markets rely more on strengthening of IP system and emerging markets have potential to create innovative paradigms for expansion of profits. So, in the difficult times when R&D units and further Indian firms are being sold to the foreign MNCs, more focus should be on process innovation like Jaipur foot/Shankar Netralaya and also on informal/grassroots innovation experiments. 

Access to knowledge and dissemination of knowledge is one of the most crucial issues while debating about the IP in the context of WTO negotiations. Relation between utility and knowledge, creativity-reward-more creativity is necessary to be taken into account. Usually small monopolies stimulate further discoveries and they start eating into public domain. This affects in serious degradation of knowledge assets in public domain. So, IP enforcement motivates carving out monopolies from public domain. So, is it really possible to nurture a spill over knowledge economy? IP is an expression of an attempt to control the flow of the information. Alternate ways to codify and share the uncodified knowledge have to be devised. Strong motifs behind encouraging IP are: effective use of enforcement of IP can prevent free riding of other investments, increasing use of IP makes IP move from the context of abundance to that of scarcity, markets are most effective mechanism to deal with the knowledge and central coordination of research activities is more efficient than decentralised innovation. In the book The Politics of Open Source, author Stephen Weber argues that value of information increases by use and sharing. Intellectual property exists on continuum of codification from uncodified tacit. Some of the proportion of the codified knowledge depends upon newness and degree of complexities of the technology. Code is increasingly being consolidated as raw material of information economy. The code can easily be steadily removed to turn into non/anti-rivolous new commons. This process can also contribute to create large body of codes that can be studied customised and recombined into new configurations by anyone who has access to basic infrastructure. Napster was a great example of that. IP is very easier to divide than to recombine it. Because it entails huge costs to do so. So, strategy should be preventing rise of anti-commons and visualising the possibility that new commons may begin shifting of assets away from north to south. 

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What is at stake in 12th Plan: Rebalancing the sequence of words " Faster, More Inclusive, and Sustainable Growth"

Issues for Approach to the 12th Five Year Plan 
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These are the interesting times for Planning Commission. This must be one of the most eagerly awaited moments in the Indian contemporary history as we witness the reports of Full Planning Commission Meeting on 21 April 2011. The Process of Formulating the 12th Plan have been accomodative, reflective on the wishes of the civil society. Even though there are issues about in what sense the term Civil Society has been interpreted. This initiative is significant in terms of very authentic questioning the existence of Planning Commission as extra-constitutional body is gaining ground by each passing day. Bibek Debroy in recent article in India Today says:

        "India's bedrock is the Constitution. Anything not in the Constitution
         should be abolished. The Planning Commission (PC) is an extra-
         Constitutional body. It was set up through executive order in 1950. It has
         no business to exist.

          Second, under the Constitution, public expenditure is scrutinized and
          approved by Parliament. As an extra-Constitutional body, PC is not
          answerable to Parliament. 

          Third, fund-flows to states take place through Finance Commission, PC
          and Central sector and Centrally-sponsored schemes CSS). We have
          diluted Finance Commission mandates since late-1960s and early-
          1970s. Union Finance Commission is the mandated Constitutional body
          for Centre-state transfers and state Finance Commissions for
          intra-state transfers. If Finance Commission's original mandate is
          restored, we won't need fund-flows to states through PC. Discretionary
          transfers to states haven't incentivised reforms in states. Annual Plan
          discussions are a nuisance. In an era of reforms, we need more
          transparency and less discretion. See how backward regions' grant-fund
          has been mis-utilised and special category status for states abused.
          This is an era of decentralization. No one knows the number of Central
          sector schemes and css. They have proliferated since late-1960s. At one
          point, the number was 455. It was pruned to 150, but have proliferated
          again. We were perfectly happy when they didn't exist, before 1960s.
          They impose Centralized templates from above, regardless of local
          conditions. This year's Budget also recognizes the Plan/non-Plan
          distinction as artificial. Even if this distinction goes, as it should, and we
          eliminate CSS, there is no need for PC. 

           Fourth, PC has been unable to push decentralized planning. In terms of
           mindsets, it makes things worse by its unwillingness to do so, as if all
           wisdom is vested from above. Witness the confusion it has created over
           poverty numbers. BPL should be determined through decentralized and
           participatory identification by gram sabhas and urban local bodies. Why
           should pc muddy waters?          

            Fifth, there are plenty of research bodies outside the Government that
           can do research now and produce data. PCs utility inthese is
           questionable. 

            Sixth, it has no imagination. It continues to produce Plan documents
            and  approach papers that are rehashes of First Five YearPlan. There
            was a time when there used to be models for growth emanating from
            PC. That was because PC had the task of directing resource flows. In
            this era of reforms, no one can direct resource allocation. It is
            determined by markets, with a role for the private sector. Several
            regulators and ministries outside PC have been empowered. What role
            can PC have now? Its projections go wrong. Had this occurred outside
            the government, PC would have been wound up long ago. PC was
            supposed to subject itself to a zero-based budgeting (ZBB) exercise,
            reinventing itself and justifying its existence. But nothing has moved.
            All that happens is PC triggers squabbles with other ministries,
            departments and states, often in public.

         
            Seventh, it is a parking spot for retired bureaucrats and failed
           politicians. The intention is not to tap their expertise. They are parked
           there because they will create the least nuisance there. In addition,
           positive affirmation and reservation quotas characterize membership.
           This is true of other commissions too. But what's true of other
           commissions is also true of this. It should be distinguished through an
           act of omission."  

Keeping in mind all the questions raised above, let us take a look at the outcomes of recent Planning Commission meeting chaired by Hon. Prime Minister.

" Eleventh Plan Experience
• GDP growth likely to average 8.2% over 11th Plan: short of the 9%
  target, but remarkable given the global crisis and drought
• In the 10th Plan GDP growth averaged 7.7 %
• We have also seen progress on inclusiveness: Agricultural growth,
  Poverty Reduction, Education, Health, Upliftment of SCs/STs,
  Minorities etc.
• However progress on inclusiveness less than expected. We are likely
  to miss Millennium Development Goals (MDG), except perhaps on
  poverty
• Inflation has accelerated in the last two years
• Current international environment is very uncertain
      Global pressure on food, oil and other commodity prices
      Financial conditions & exchange rates are likely to be volatile due
      to sovereign debt related problems in Europe/US, and readjustment
      of extra-ordinary monetary/fiscal easing

About consultations 
" We have commenced a very wide consultative process on the
  challenges for the 12th Plan
• Over 900 CSOs across the country have participated, as well as many
  industry associations and ‘think tanks’
• Internet being used for first time to reach out to broader community
  including several hundred sectoral experts
• Planning Commission has launched a dedicated website
  http://12thplan.gov.in This site is also linked to Facebook. 32,000
  netizens have visited these two sites and have left many insightful
  comments
• A series of regional consultations with States are planned in May
• Dialogue with other stakeholders continues."

Key Messages from Consultations
• Strong demand from all sectors of society to improve Implementation,
  Accountability and Service Delivery
• Citizens Groups broadly support the stated objectives of existing
  government programmes. However, the design and institutional
  arrangements are weak. Greater devolution and empowerment needed
• Government programmes need a new architecture: greater
  localisation, break-down of silos, feedback from citizens, and
  mechanisms for learning and sharing of best practices
• A major contribution to economic growth now comes from the private
  sector. A policy environment that supports this dynamism is therefore
  important
• Create environment for nurturing enterprise, improving markets,
  supporting innovation, providing access to finance and inculcating
  respect for common pool resources
                                                                       
Twelfth Plan Objectives
• Basic objective : Faster, More Inclusive, and Sustainable Growth
• Is 10% growth feasible? Realistically, even 9% will need strong
  policy action. Could aim at 9.0 to 9.5 percent
• Energy, Water and Environment present major sectoral challenges. Can
  we address them without sacrificing growth?
• Can we find resources to create a world class infrastructure?
• For growth to be more inclusive we need:
        Better performance in agriculture
        Faster creation of jobs, especially in manufacturing
        Stronger efforts at health, education and skill development
        Improve effectiveness of programmes directly aimed at the poor
        Special programmes for socially vulnerable groups
        Special plans for disadvantaged/backward regions
     
Desirable changes                                                        
• Social Mobilisation: People should be active agents of change. Flagship
  programmes need to provide human and financial resources for social
  mobilisation, capacity building and information sharing
• Professionally managed delivery organisations are needed with clear
  mandates and accountability. We need much better mechanisms for
  convergence of government departments on systemic issues
• Devolution can be effective only if the autonomy of PRIs/ULBs is
  increased and their human resource capabilities improved. How can the
  Centre help?
• Mechanisms need to be created at all levels to understand the needs of
  vulnerable sections of the society and inform policy-makers
• Diagnostics of Failure and Mainstreaming of Success: horizontal linkages
  need to be created for exchange of information and best practices
• Institutional mechanisms for conflict resolution, particularly for land and
  water."


Planning Commission has identified 12 challenges for the 12th Plan.
These are:
                  Enhancing capacity for growth
                  Enhancing skills and faster generation of  Employment
                  Environmental and ecological sustainability
                  Decentralization, Empowerment, and Information
                  Technology and innovation
                  Securing the energy future for India
                  Accelerated development of transport infrastructure
                  Rural Transformation and Sustained Growth of Agriculture
                  Managing Urbanization
                  Improved access to Quality Education
                  Better preventive and curative healthcare
                  Economic Turbo Chargers


The list of challenges will not end here but these are broad challenges identified. The elements of challenges must be discussed. Before taking break from this piece let us ponder over what Mihir Sharma from Indian Express said when he wrote a well timed OpEd. He said:

               " Policy-making’s central problem: how the machinery of administration has obsolescence built-in, how it is creakingly failing to adapt to a new and more complex era. Our government is run by generalists. And there’s no chance of that changing any time soon. But now, each ministry and department, state or Central, is expected to try and frame policy with market-supporting, quick-reacting precision. Much blunter instruments — licences, restrictions, diktats of one sort or another — are out. The economy is an even denser tangle of 

connections than the one that planners in the ’50s tried to reduce to a large matrix of inputs and outputs. 

                      There’s a lot of talent in government. But everybody knows they can’t    handle this transition alone. Nor should they, many would argue. Policy possibilities that aren’t culled from a broad base of experiences will be too limited. And if you have just tenured employees analysing alternatives, you build in bias towards rigidity and conservatism. We don’t need a statutory body wasting its time predicting how much   steel we will need in five years. We do know what we need: an institution capable of providing genuinely independent, non-partisan ideas — yet ones that engage with the human and political aspects of the economy, rather than sterile accounting aspects of it. 

                  The biggest barriers to increasing and deepening growth, and freedom, today are political. Advice that pretends they don’t exist has little value. Where would this advice come from? Our political parties don’t debate and develop policy ideas. We don’t have a culture of think-tanks, nor does one look like developing. Universities have other reform priorities. Journalists can’t do everything. No, government itself will need to nurture and grow independent — and persuasive — sources for policy prescriptions and recommendations.Nehru’s Planning Commission was supposed to help the state be the vanguard of the economy, to provide disinterested instructions to an activist government. Now, instead, a retreating government needs the Commission, or something very like it, to be the vanguard." 

 I think, possibilities of confusion have now evaporated. 

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